ABC News: Nightline: Kal Penn Leaves The White House

By John | Monday, August 1, 2011 | 4 Comments

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For approximately the past two years, Kalpen Modi, (or better known as Kal Penn or “Kumar” of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle fame) has been working in The White House for the Obama administration as Associate Director of Public Engagement as the the Liaison to Young Americans, the Arts, and Asian American and Pacific Islander communitie. Friday was Penn’s last day at The White House and Penn finished to return back to acting. During his time, as Penn has not given an interview for his work during The White House, but finally spoke with ABC News Nightline.

I’m quite impressed with Penn’s ability to pursue multiple divergent interests, being able to bridge his interest in acting as well as his passion for public service and politics. I was also shocked to hear that Penn only made $41,000 a year; Washington DC isn’t exactly an cheap city to live in, so if being a White House staffer means barely scraping by, I’d have to think twice about moving to D.C. for even Penn’s position just for financial reasons. Of course, I wouldn’t have Hollywood earnings I could live off, either.

Penn will apparently be joining the cast of How I Met Your Mother and will be seen in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas , I’m assuming, in December (no official release date has been announced yet).

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Current EventsEntertainmentPoliticsTV

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Facebook Comments (Beta)

http://twitter.com/inswongful StephRWong

Wow this is really kind of shocking because I had no idea he even worked at the white house. It’s also surprising to know that he got the job with the roles he’s played in movies and tv in the past–just being a comedian and all most of the time. It is nice to see a hollywood actor really taking the intiative to work in a low-profile job that is actually important to the public and not for his own interests. Kudos to him!

and btw I think he played Kumar in the movie, not Harold as you stated in the beginning of the post.

Thank you so much for sharing this awesome article!
johnklin

@StephRWong Oops, my bad! I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote Harold instead of Kumar!
NicoleLee

I’m just upset that his character on House was killed off (because Kal had to leave in the middle of the season to work for the White House). He was my favorite!
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